Paul Marks poses a question about a hypothetical character who seems strangely… familiar
What does one do about the growth of government leading to the collapse of society?
In the United States if one is a Democrat there is no problem – such a person does not tend to believe that the growth of government causes any damage so one can tax and spend with a happy heart (until the cannibals tear out that heart).
But what if one is a Republican? Not a Democrat by another name (like the absurd Mayor Bloomberg of New York City), but the sort of Republican who (whilst he may have no libertarian principles) dimly knows that an ever expanding government will cause harm to society (i.e. the web of social interactions between human beings).
Let us say that one is the sort of Republican who spent his years at Yale getting drunk (rather than being teacher’s pet like his father), because he had enough sense to understand that what he was being taught was nonsense.
Well (if one is not a man of fanatical principle) one spouts off enough of the nonsense to get a “C average” (the lowest respectable grade), makes some networking contacts (that will prove of use later in life) and then goes off into the world.
Then say one becomes President of the United States (so one can not say “someone else will keep things going”), and faces a situation where defence spending (the only form of government spending that history shows is easy to cut) is going to go UP rather than down.
The “entitlement programs” (the Welfare State) continues to expand and society is under threat – so what do you do?
Perhaps you start by trying to find ways to “contract out” government activities, but (perhaps because you suspect there are no magic solutions to fiscal problems) you also announce that civilian government employees are going to get a 3.1 (rather than 4.1) percent pay increase this year – and justify it on “national security” grounds.
There will have to be many such moves if the United States is to be saved – but it is good to know that the President has some understanding (dim or not so dim) of the problem.
Paul Marks
Well yes, privatizing public sector jobs is a good idea. Unfortunately, I’m sure that this hypothetical president would do much worse in preserving liberty than he did at Yale. He might even come up with some insane plot to found a “Ministry of information and control” or something similar like “Total Information Awareness.” He might also create the largest government agency in 50 years. Perhaps not. Who can say? This is a fantasy dreamworld, right?
If only it was a fantasy dreamworld (I rather like those).
I saw a telling editorial in the paper today about this which puts things in perspective a bit. Estimates are that the smaller pay raises will save $1B over the next fiscal year. The farm bill which Bush signed will cost more than $200B over the next six years. Interest on the national debt is hundreds of billions more. This is like trying to empty a bathtub with a teaspoon.
I wonder if this is going to affect the retirement pensions of the civil service employees that will be lost due to attrition.
With the Republicans in control of the government, The test of Bush’s fiscal responsibility will be if he’ll push with any vigor efforts to repopulate the government positions that will be open over the next 2-6 years due to all those whose been leeching over the past 20 years. *That* will save the government billions, in addition to privatising half of the Federal Service contract, and this new pay cut. The fact that he’s cutting things now is a very good sign.
The thing is that he’s saving small amounts of money, whilst massively increasing governmental spending in other areas. Why people believe his claims to fiscal conservatism is beyond me.
I’ll agree that these are certainly postive steps, but the large negative steps we’ve taken under his administration more than cancel them.